Hey Mexico, It's Time for Another Moment

(Image: Presidencia de Mexico)

Antonio Garza /The Dallas Morning News

February 16, 2016

In 2012, the international press and the Peña Nieto administration declared that it was Mexico's moment. It was the time when the country would reorient its economy and take its rightful place as a leading emerging market. Four years and a few corruption scandals, massacres, and brazen prison escapes later, the label is little more than an afterthought. But let's not be hasty in our rush to abandon the phrase. Actually, let's embrace it. Mexico, it's time for another moment, but this time in rule of law.

President Enrique Peña Nieto assumed office three years ago, taking his country and the world by storm. His technocratic team introduced and pushed forward a stack of reforms that overhauled markets, promised sizzling economic growth, and positioned the country as a market to watch. The energy sector opened up, competition picked up in telecommunications, and structural changes went into effect in labor markets and schools across the country. It seemed, to quote a Financial Times piece, that the Aztec tiger was beginning to sharpen its claws.

There was one critical element missing in this ambitious plan: anything related to seriously strengthening rule of law. In the process of redefining Mexico, the new team ignored the very problems of corruption and violence that had tripped up previous administrations. Armed only with a fresh reframing and a few isolated policy ideas, it is hard to see if and how they planned to thoroughly patch up Mexico's rotten rule of law.